


English Breakfast

by okapi



Series: Twelve Cups of Tea [1]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/F, Fem!John - Freeform, Fem!Sherlock, Genderswap, Oblivious John, POV Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Pre-Slash, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-12
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-04 08:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1773190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Or why Sherlock never makes tea.</i> </p><p>The morning after "A Study in Pink," John makes tea. Sherlock falls in love. </p><p>Pre-slash. Pining!Sherlock/Oblivious!John. Genderswap.</p>
            </blockquote>





	English Breakfast

“Whew! Well, that’s the lot. Wouldn’t think that I’d work up a sweat moving my meager belongings, but there you have it. I guess when you start the day knackered, any ol’ thing will do it. Ah, let’s see…Yes, yes, here we go…Landlord was a total prat about my leaving before the end of the month, by the way, but I wasn’t keen to spend another night in that bedsit. So what are you up to this fine morning? Curing cancer?”

Sherlock didn’t look up from the microscope. “Cancer’s boring.”

“Ha! Can’t say that oncology ever held much allure for me either, but I knew a bloke in medical school…”

Sherlock studied the liver cells. John moved about the kitchen, chattering.

“…and then _I_ said, ‘Of course, it destroyed the flat! It’s an anteater! It’s looking for ants!’ Sherlock?”

The liver cells were abandoned at the brush of fingers and hot ceramic on Sherlock’s hand. She looked up.

“You _hear_ , but you do not _listen,_ ” teased John. “’A cup that cheers, but does not inebriate.’”

Sherlock took the offered cup.

_Lovely. Every morning. Like this. Tea. And her smile. “Good morning, Sherlock.” Her lips. On mine._

Sherlock frowned.

_Poetry. Sentiment._

_Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side._

**_Delete._ **

John turned and leaned against the table; she sipped from her cup and sighed.

Sherlock put her cup to her lips, but before the tea moved from her tongue to the back of her throat, she saw the scar.

_Hello, gorgeous!_

Sometime during her prattling, John had stripped down to a sleeveless white vest and athletic bra. Sherlock immediately archived an image of John’s shoulder in her Mind Palace. Then, she discerned the bullet, weapon, position of John vis-à-vis the shooter, initial treatment, subsequent infection, later treatment, tissue damage, nerve damage…

“I told you there was an actual wound.”

Sherlock realized that she was staring. That _John_ realized that she was staring. _Not Good._

Sherlock hid her face in the cup and drank. She closed her eyes; the steam bathed her nose and eyelids.

“Hey, it’s fine.”  _Her touch is warm. From the tea._ “I normally don’t put it on display, but after last night’s adventure, I figure it’s just your cup of tea. Speaking of which…”

Sherlock ventured a glance at John’s face. She found no reprisal there _._

_Extraordinary. Quite extraordinary._

Sherlock swallowed more tea. She felt feverish, delirious. The tea was infiltrating every cell of her organism, elevating her basal body temperature, turning her skin a dark shade of teak.

 _I want to touch that scar. To_ know _it. To map it. With my fingertips. With my tongue._

“…how you want it?”

A periodic table of Karma Sutra positions exploded behind Sherlock’s eyes.

_I want you beneath me._

_Atop me._

_Astride me._

_In my lap._

_But first and foremost, beneath me. Calling my name_.

“Sherlock!”

John’s eyes clouded. _Not Good_.

Sherlock blinked.

_Lust. Desire. Fantasy._

_Immaterial. Useless. Distracting._

**_Delete._ **

“You must be as knackered as I am, but are loath to admit it. Let’s try again, simpler. How. Is. The. Tea?”

“It’s _fine_.” Sherlock attacked the cup, slurping. The tea, afronted, struck back, scalding Sherlock's tongue as she gulped.

“Great. Glad that tea isn’t like breathing. Or cancer. Because then we definitely can’t be friends. Tea is a non-negotiable in my life.”

John winked and strolled out the kitchen, cup in hand. Sherlock, much like John staring at the closing door of Bart’s laboratory less than forty-eight hours earlier, was left to her own thoughts.

_Friends?_

_Impossible._

_I don’t have any._

_But maybe…_

_She killed a man in my defense, after knowing me scant hours. Surely that means…_ something _._

 _I_ do _need an assistant, an audience that attracts less attention in public than the skull, and yet…_

 _She seems to more than tolerate me; she seems to…_ accept _me._

 _Perhaps, with time, she might even come to…_ understand… _to_ care _._

_We might be friends. Lovers. Partners._

Sherlock sighed.

_All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage._

**_Delete._ **

But before the command was executed, Sherlock caught a fleeting glimpse of John’s scar. Then John slipped on her jumper and disappeared from Sherlock's view.

**_Stop delete._ **

**_Save: image_Scar_Shoulder(L)_Watson, J._ **

**_Save: audio_”Tea is a non-negotiable in my life.”_Watson, J._ **

Sherlock drank the last of her tea. She swished the dregs in the bottom of the cup and mused.

_What does the future hold? Shall she love me? Love me not?_

The cup made a hollow _thunk!_ on the table beside the microscope.

 _This.._ creature _…has reduced_ me _—Sherlock Holmes, a woman of Science, of Logic—to whimsical superstition!_

_Intolerable!_

**_Resume delete._ **

Sherlock switched slides brusquely as if the liver cells were witness to—and thus somehow complicit in—her folly.

 

Later, Sherlock raised her head.

_Cup. Tea. John._

“John?”

“Hmm?”

Newspaper pages rustled in the sitting room.

Sherlock held out her cup.

_John makes the tea._

More rustling, and then John appeared. “You imperial git! Alright.” She shuffled into the kitchen. “This,” she said, “is Assam, Ceylon and Kenyan black teas expertly blended to accompany a proper English breakfast. You’ve nothing in. Shall I pop ‘round to the shops and get provisions for said breakfast?”

“Just tea for me, thanks.”

“Ha! Okay. I won’t start nagging you to eat until we know each other better. Tea for two, it is.”

Sherlock smiled.

 _Tea for two._  

**Author's Note:**

> Many cups of [English breakfast tea](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_breakfast_tea) were consumed—at all times of day and night—in the production of this fic.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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